As You Rise, So Shall I Fall
by HollowIsTheWorld
Summary: ... And as you fall, so shall I rise. It took John Hart a long time to realize that the only time he didn't feel broken was when Jack Harkness did. Alternatively, John Hart's descent into madness.
1. Need and Want

**AN: **This idea actually woke me up this morning. It then proceeded to insist upon being written and refused to let me do my homework. Whatever. I don't know how often I'll update, it'll depend on how much motivation I get from reviews and whether or not my mood is right for it. This will be an angsty story, just so you're aware. Especially if you're a John fan. There will be references to Doctor Who stuff (obviously, Jack's involved) but nothing really important or that makes this into more of a crossover than a Torchwood story. By the way, can you spot the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference I slipped in?

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Torchwood or Doctor Who.

John - whose name wasn't really John - had only joined the time agency because some people seemed to think it would be good for his attitude. It was, essentially, the fifty-first century equivalent of military school.

He'd first seen Jack - whose name wasn't really Jack - two days after he arrived. John arrived, that is. Jack had been there for ages. 'The Face of Bo.' Bloody poster child. Drove John crazy. Even when he couldn't help but return that cocky grin Jack flashed towards him.

But Jack was radiant. He was impossible to ignore and he was magnetic. He drew people to him like flies to honey - or moths to a flame. John didn't know it then, but people who went to Jack had a tendency to burn up.

It was months later that John first saw the haunted tint to that grin. The two of them went out for drinks - which was against the rules, but they didn't really care. What was the point of rules if you never broke them? It was fun at first - "John, you can't get in a fight with the bartender for not having Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, you _know_ that they're illegal," - but John quickly discovered that his friend was not a very pleasant drunk past a certain point.

Jack had grown quiet, staring glumly into his glass with eyes that suddenly seemed older than they should. John nudged him rather hard in the shoulder. "You alright there, mate?"

Jack jumped a little at the sudden noise. He'd clearly been miles away. "Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

"Well, that was convincing," John told him, looking at him skeptically.

Jack glared but his eyes were so glazed over from the alcohol that it didn't have its usual effect. John had grown immune to the glare by now anyway, so he fully ignored his friend's annoyance. "Go on, then. What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing."

John punched him in the shoulder. "Liar. Come on, you can tell your best mate. What happened? Girl wouldn't sleep with you? Boy give lousy head? You kill your puppy?"

Jack made a strangled noise at the last one, and John looked at him, concerned. "What, you killed your puppy? Since when do you have a puppy?"

"N-not a pup-puppy," Jack said, voice quivering. He was starting to slur his words.

"Kitten then? Come on, love, what happened?"

"Br-brother. Grey."

"You've got a brother? Why didn't I know this?"

"D-_dead_. I _killed_ him. I was sup-supposed to protect him, get him ou-out. Failed." Jack's words were hard to make out now, muffled in strangled sobs. Tears were starting to escape out of the sides of Jack's eyes.

John didn't know what to do, but he hesitantly reached out for his friend's shoulder. "Come on, I think you need some rest."

He managed to haul Jack back to his room. On the way there, John got a muffled, stuttering, disjointed version of events about Jack's brother. Something about an attack, running, and letting go of Grey's hand. And then Grey was gone. John wanted to tell Jack that it wasn't his fault if his brother couldn't find it in him to keep up while they were running for their lives, but he was pretty sure that would just upset Jack further.

He deposited Jack on his bed, intending to leave him to sleep off the alcohol alone. Jack sat up and pulled him back with a surprising amount of strength for a teenager that was three sheets to the wind.

"D-don't leave. Please."

John sat down next to Jack immediately. "'Course not."

"I-I just…"

Jack buried his face in John's shoulder, crying in earnest now.

John, uncomfortable and not used to giving comfort, hesitantly put his arm around his friend's shoulders again. "You'll be alright," he told him.

Jack looked up, wet eyes meeting calm ones. "How do you know?"

John shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "Got me, don't you?"

Jack sat there, swaying lightly from the alcohol, looking into John's eyes as though he thought there was something hiding inside them.

John was caught off guard when Jack lunged forwards and crashed their mouths together.

Just like that, they were kissing, a battle for dominance that was aggressive and hurt and was just a clash of lips and teeth and tongues. They were gasping for air against each other's mouths, refusing to break the kiss, pulling each other closer, tugging on their hair, their clothes.

"Want…" Jack moaned against John's lips.

Jack ripped John's shirt open with one more defiant tug, pulling it away from the skin and pulling John even closer, hand wandering over every inch of skin that had been exposed.

John growled into Jack's mouth when he heard the fabric tear and deepened the kiss, pushing Jack back onto the bed. He tore Jack's shirt in turn, stripping him of it in one easy pull. Jack pulled his hand from John's chest and wrapped his arms around his neck.

"Need you, want you, please…" Jack's voice was a breath, not even a whisper, just a desperate plea into John's mouth. Begging. John responded with everything he had.

The night became a blur of touches, hands, lips, teeth, tongues, fingertips, soft gasps, moans, whispers of names. Their clothes were ripped off more and more viciously, buttons flying, zippers snapping, stitches ripping away from the cloth they bound.

They restarted their battle for dominance on an entirely new field. They pushed at each other, pulled hair until the other cried out. Their limbs tangled together in the dim light until it was hard to tell which of them lay where.

The night was vicious, demanding. John fought for control, even as Jack's fingers began working him open. He didn't stop until Jack had forced him down on the bed, Jack in between his legs. Jack had gone inside him, hard, fast, and deep. John tossed his head back and gasped, eyes huge and pupils dilated.

He cried out as Jack continued to thrust into him, harder and harder each time, but he gripped him tightly. He didn't want it to end, even though it hurt he never wanted this to end. It just felt so damn _good_.

The night narrowed further to just sweaty bodies, quick, harsh movements, the slap of flesh on flesh, moans and cries as they bit and sucked at each other's skin, leaving love bites in their wake.

Jack had been understandably hung over the next morning, but he remembered what had happened. Even if he hadn't, waking up naked, sore, and covered in hickeys next to John - who was in a similar condition, but much more sore - would have been enough to clue him in.

After that, they became stolen kisses in the hallway and silent quickies in the closets, gulping down each other's moans of pain and pleasure. The agency partnered them up, seeing how well they balanced each other, controlled each other. How well Jack kept John in check.

Everyone thought that John would fall without Jack.

They weren't right, but they weren't wrong either.


	2. First Kill

**AN: **Think I could get a review? Any kind, really. 'Great,' 'Angsty,' 'Oh, please stop writing, you're terrible?' I'll take whatever I can get, honestly. Just to let me know how I'm doing.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Torchwood. I don't even own the planets that are mentioned, I got them off a website listing different planets that have been mentioned in Doctor Who.

* * *

For months - _years_ - Jack turned to John. When he'd had too much to drink, when he'd had a long day, when someone said something that reminded him of Grey, his father, his mother, his _failure_, he always turned to John.

And John was always there. He practically preened under the attention. He loved the fact that it was _him_, no one else, just _him_, that Jack turned to when he needed someone. He had never been a comforter before, but he was clearly doing something right. Jack always seemed more relaxed and well-distracted by the time he and John were done.

John loved Jack. He hadn't had much of a stable life growing up, bad parents and no real friends to speak of, and he'd never really felt love before. But this had to be what it was like. This was love, what he and Jack had. And he liked it. It was _good_.

John never knew what changed. Sometimes it seemed as though Jack had been Retconned. He just _stopped_. Stopped agonizing over it. Stopped crying. Stopped being crushed by the memory of losing his little brother.

Stopped. Needing. John.

And John couldn't have that. He couldn't _take_ Jack not needing him. It had been barely noticeable at first. Jack had stopped instigating kisses when no one was looking. He stopped pulling John away to the closets for a quick shag. He'd only half-heartedly returned the kisses John initiated.

One day, John made a move to pull Jack away for a kiss - and Jack pushed him back. "No."

He'd said it simply, plainly, as though it was nothing. As though it _meant _nothing. "What do you mean, _no?_" John said, voice harsh and bitingly angry to cover up the rising terror in his chest.

Jack seemed taken aback by the tough tone. "John, we can't be doing this," he said. He said it clearly, in a tone one might expect to be used with a small child that was being told that it shouldn't throw rocks into the neighbor's yard. It said only too clearly that he thought what he was saying was obvious, expected John to be in complete agreement with him about this.

"We can't keep this up. It's unprofessional. It's bad for us, bad for our jobs, bad for the people we work with… You realize we're about to graduate? This is about to be the big time for us. Not just little missions that take maybe two days at the most, no more classes to pretend to pay attention in. We're about to be professionals. And this… whatever the hell it is... it needs to stop. I'm grateful for what you did for me, I really am. But I don't need it anymore and it's not healthy. So we're stopping. Right now, while we still can. We both know it's the best thing."

John stood there, shocked and unable to speak as Jack continued speaking. What the _hell_ was he talking about? Going on and on about how this what they both wanted, what they both needed. What the hell did Jack know? How was he standing there, looking expectant and not the least bit guilty, never once thinking that it might mean something to _John_?

John nodded mute agreement, jaw locked furiously. His body was moving on autopilot, barely requiring any attention at all. He nodded, began to follow Jack along once more. If his anger showed on his face, Jack didn't give any indication that he noticed.

John's brain, on the other hand, was going so quickly that if it had been any sort of vehicle it would have gone skidding right off the road and crashed into a horrifying inferno.

_'Can't do this, can't _do _it,'_

_'Not fair, not fair,'_

_'Stupid, stupid, he's so bloody _thick_, doesn't know anything,'_

_'Thinks I don't care, I do, I _love_ him, doesn't he get that doesn't he see…'_

_'Thinks it's all about him, stupid ponce, get him back, I will, I'll show him, he'll need me and I'll show him…'_

John said nothing. Jack's blatant obliviousness made it only too clear that he thought their long affair had been nothing but sex to distract him from his guilt.

But he was _wrong_. So wrong. And it made John so _angry_.

He worked with Jack through the end of training days. Stood next to him as they officially graduated. Followed him through one mission after another. And he fumed silently about the injustice of it all, because how _dare_ Jack just walk away from him like that? Didn't he think John deserved _anything_?

And then Jack went and took it another step further. He got himself _a different bloody partner._

"Oh, it's just this once, you know? Terrence_ is_ the resident expert on the Baydafarn recession, after all. You can go do a mission with Connor, keep yourself from getting bored."

He'd smiled that stupid, cocky grin of his that never failed to make John's heart hurt just a tiny bit. It was his weak spot, that stupid grin. And then Jack had walked away, giving John a friendly punch to the shoulder as he went by.

And red had filled John's vision. He'd stormed around the base for a few minutes, and bad timing had him standing there as Jack and _Terrence_ went off on their mission.

Connor had come bounding up, all smiles - and ears, he had stupid, giant ears - and John had hated him.

"Hi! So, since our partners are off causing trouble without us, there's a mission going on in Collabria, if you want to team up with me and we can take it together?"

_Endless_ energy, the pest. John had been about to say no, and tell Connor to go away in a very unpleasant manner, but a horrid idea started to emerge from all that red that was still blinding him, and he'd smiled instead.

"Yeah, sure. I'm ready when you are."

Connor beamed.

Ten minutes into the mission, he wasn't beaming anymore. No one can _beam_ when they're slumped over, coated in their own blood, body slowly cooling in the way that is common after life has departed.

John stared at the corpse with vague interest on his features. _That_ was good therapy. Almost as good as fucking Jack would have been. Of course, if that had been an option, he wouldn't have been in need of therapy the way he was. Maybe it would have been best if he'd made it last longer, not killed him so quickly...

Oh well. John would take what he could get. He put an arm around what was left of Connor, making a face of disgust at the bloodstains appearing on his coat. Maybe he should have waited until the blood had dried before returning to the Agency. It was too late to do anything about it now.

John transported himself and Connor back to the Agency and they were met by panicked shouts and then people were all over the both of them, trying to fix John up despite his constant insistence that he was _fine_, so sod off already, and shouting at him for answers.

John gave them some bullshit story about being attacked and he was too far away to help, and he killed the guy, but it was too late, and then he started shaking and told them that he needed to go lay down. They all but rushed him back to his room and they put him under strict orders to stay there, for his own good.

John had no problem with that and he remained there, reading and feeling smug until, several hours later, Jack came bursting through the door without bothering to knock first.

"Are you okay? You are okay, aren't you? They said you were okay, but I had to come make sure, oh _God, _and we saw Connor, and Terrence just about lost his mind, he looked _awful_, and I had to come see if you were alright, and… You are okay, right?"

John was pleased at the panic in Jack's eyes. "I'm alright. Don't worry. The guy just got Connor."

Jack nodded, looking relieved. "Good. That's good. Fantastic. Okay. I'm going to go check on Terrence, alright? Make sure he's handling it okay by himself."

He walked out of the room before John could object. The slightly older boy sat on his bed, gaping at the door his friend had just departed through. That hadn't had the effect he was hoping for at _all._

He was going to have to take Terrence out of the picture.


	3. Comforting

**AN:** A bit shorter, but action is starting to pick up. Just a side note, I'm thinking they're in their late teens, which is why they're both 'boys' and 'young men.'

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Torchwood.

* * *

John stalked through the base, radiating anger and tension. Anyone who saw him and considered asking if he was okay or telling him he should go back to bed quickly rethought it and walked in the opposite direction. One person didn't get the hint and moved towards John. The angry time agent punched him unconscious without sparing him a glance.

He finally found Terrence. At the bar. The bar Jack and John always went to together. With Jack. Jack was at the bar - _their bar_ - with _Terrence_. John actually ground his teeth together and he thought he heard himself let out a feral growl in the general direction of the two young men.

He felt himself broiling with adrenaline and the desire to do something - anything - to get the two of them away from each other. He could hardly do anything with Jack sitting right there. He grabbed a drink right out of the hand of somebody walking by, draining it in one long gulp. When the victim of the theft made to protest, John cut him off with a glare that would have frozen a demon in its tracks.

He sat down at a back table where he could see them without being seen himself and ordered an entire bottle of the strongest alcohol the bar had to carry. He didn't bother with a glass. He glared at Jack and Terrence, injecting the stare with all the venom he could muster up - which was a truly impressive amount.

Neither of them seemed to notice the heated mental daggers that John was aiming at them, which took some of the fun out of it, but it was a satisfying action in and of itself. The daggers grew sharper and hotter the longer John watched, alcohol sliding down his throat and burning in his stomach. It wasn't being very effective.

Jack was leaning towards Terrence, on hand on the other boy's upper arm, face gentle and reassuring. He had his customary charm going in full gear, just barely toned down for the soberness of the situation. Soberness only in the emotional sense of course, if Terrence had been anymore drunk his liver would have started a rebellion.

It was several hours and another bottle and a half of alcohol for John before Jack put an arm around Terrence - causing John's blood to boil further and him to take another huge swig from the bottle - and half-lead, half-dragged him away.

John followed. He didn't really think much about _why_ he was following them, he just knew that between the red haze of anger, the green haze of jealousy, and the whirling black haze that was probably the alcohol, it seemed like the thing to do. He followed his friend - _ex-lover _- and watched as he escorted Terrence to his room. Watched as he _followed _Terrence _into_ his room. And watched as the door didn't open again to let Jack out.

Jack had taken the quarter full bottle of alcohol with him from the bar. He drained it in a few more swigs and shattered it against the wall.

No one seemed to hear the crash, and John stormed away. This was ending right now. Jack may not want _him_, but he sure as well wasn't going to be hooking up with anybody else. Not after everything John had done for him, had been _willing_ to do for him if Jack had ever asked. Jack definitely wasn't going to be sleeping with the guy whose partner John had just killed. No chance. Not on John's watch.

* * *

The next morning, Jack appeared in John's doorway, his face tight and pale. "Terrence is dead," he said shakily. "They're saying he shot himself."

John pulled Jack wordlessly into the room. Jack collapsed against him. "I should have stayed with him last night, but I thought he was dealing. I knew he was upset but I didn't think he'd… Maybe I let him drink too much. Maybe I should have stopped him sooner, but I thought he needed it. I thought it was just him letting off steam. I'd have stopped him if I thought…"

John cut him off with a forceful kiss. Jack made a noise of protest against his partner's mouth, but gave in almost immediately. The two of them tumbled onto the bed together, fumbling with clothing as they went.

John pushed Jack down with a hushed order for Jack to stop thinking so much. Jack accepted the distraction gratefully, and the two of them lost themselves in each other for a few hours.

It wasn't until after, when Jack had fallen asleep, worn out and covered with fresh love-bites, that John allowed himself to settle down and smile with satisfaction at this turn of events. Jack needed him again. The red haze of righteous anger that had clouded him since Jack had broken it off had finally faded. He was determined to keep it that way.

* * *

I'll leave it to you to decide if Terrence committed suicide and John's just an oppurtunist, or if John killed him himself. Feel free to leave a review with your opinion.


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